Listening - EIKEN Grade 2
Around 25 minutes and 30 questions, run continuously from a single audio source. Question and options are printed in the booklet, so your job is to read ahead, catch the one line that decides the answer, and mark it before the next item starts. The vocabulary is the same upper-high-school range as Reading; the difficulty is timing, not words.
The four parts
- Part 1 (about 10 questions). Short dialogues; question and four options are printed. The answer is usually in one short line - a time, a place, a reason, a decision.
- Part 2 (about 10 questions). Longer dialogues with printed question and options; the speakers often discuss, reject, then settle on something.
- Part 3 (about 5 questions). The situation is explained in Japanese on the page, then you hear a dialogue. Use the Japanese to predict who is speaking and which vocabulary will appear.
- Part 4 (about 5 questions). Monologues - announcements, notices, short talks. Signposts ("first", "the main reason", "however") carry the answers.
Worked example
W: Did you catch the 6:40 train this morning? M: I meant to, but the line was delayed, so I took the 7:05 and got to the office at 7:50 - twenty minutes late. Question: What time did the man arrive at the office? Options: 7:05 / 7:30 / 7:50 / 8:10. Answer: 7:50.
Two numbers compete. "Twenty minutes late" invites you to subtract and pick 7:30, but the question asks when he arrived, and he says it directly. Rule: answer the question printed on the page, not the number you can calculate. "The 6:40" and "7:05" are traps for people who grab the first time they hear.
Traps that cost marks
- Rejected suggestions. "Why don't we take a taxi?" "Actually, the bus is faster." The answer is the bus, not the taxi.
- Corrections and hedges. "It's at three." "Sorry, I mean half past three." The second number wins.
- Negatives. "Not unusual", "few people", "she hardly ever" - mark these as you hear them.
- Sound-alikes. Fifteen/fifty, walk/work, rice/rise; judge from the sentence context, not the isolated sound.
- Reading only the options. Read the question stem first so you know which type of information to listen for.
- Answering during the next item. Mark something immediately; a blank is always wrong, a guess may not be.